Sports game, of which there are seven remaining: Bucks — Bulls Preview

What to Watch For: Bucks

Tuesday Brandon Knightwent on WSSP’s Chuck and Wickett radio show. Among other things, the former Kentucky guard Knight said that he couldn’t trash talk any Badger fans leading up to the Final Four because Wisconsin is “home”.

Let’s enumerate the things Knight has dealt with in his debut season in Milwaukee: an injury in the opening game, the loss of his team’s best player to self-inflicted injury (then another injury), veteran leadership with a bent toward self-servitude, an 18.7% winning percentage, and Antarctica. And he’s still willing to call his adopted state home. That kind of loyalty is almost enough to make you want to dance.

One other factoid of note: if the Bucks lose, they will assure at least a tie for the worst record in franchise history (20-62 in 1993-94), a team coached by Mike Dunleavy.

What to Watch For: Bulls

This game features the NBA’s top two fourth-quarter assist men. At the beginning of the season, if you were given 500 guesses at which pair of players would hand out the most fourth-quarter helpers, you would not have guessed this pair, but they exist nonetheless. Here is a list of the top five:

Prediction: Bull 81 – Bucks 69

Husband. Father. Blogger. Retired mathlete. I covered Larry Sanders' "Three Thumbs Up" game as credentialed media -- and failed to see well enough to witness the thumbing as it happened. On Twitter, I'm anaheimamigos.

I’m glad that KL listed some of the challenges that Brandon has faced being a member of the Bucks this season.
This is what I’ve been getting at with regard to Khris Middleton when Bucksketball has graded him with two “F”s and a “D” in recent recaps, plus an unflattering Vine or two; I was getting at the point that it seems to be really hard to be a Buck this season, and that this should be pointed out often to counterbalance the negative grades.
This is what I’ve been getting at with John Henson, when I’ve written that Bucksketball should be standing up for him more as he’s been slighted by the Bucks with inconsistent roles and inconsistent minutes.
I understand that it’s good to be honest and critical and humorous at times, and fair to give low grades for any given game — although I think Bucksketball should be more careful about giving flunking grades — but what I’m really concerened about is context and perspective with our young guys so as not to discourage them.
The possibly unintentional result is that the players get a lot more criticism than management, a situation which should be the other way around — especially after looking at ESPNs evaluation of Bucks’ management this week, the dismal and disastrous and devastating rankings given by a panel that included Ian Segovia of Bucksketball.
(By the way, I’m not sure why players wouldn’t get discouraged by criticism from media and bloggers and fans; most of us in this world are sensitive to criticism, and appreciate encouragement. Even Bucksketball gets more than a little testy when I’ve been hard on them — although when I complimented them a day or so ago, they said nothing.)
The bottom line is that we seem to have a group of young players who are not only talented, but also of good character, and team players: Brandon, Khris, John, Larry, Giannis and Nate. I think these guys deserve more appreciation and encouragement from Bucksketball, which doesn’t seem to think a player is worthy of enthusiasm unless he has superstar potential.
Even if we draft a superstar, even if Giannis becomes a superstar, we still need the Khris Middletons and John Hensons of the NBA to be solid starters and subs in order to make the Bucks into a premier team. Plus, I wouldn’t count out the Middletons and Hensons from becoming a lot better than generally expected, probably not superstars, but possibly all-stars.
Anyway, I hope Bucksketball might consider my words here carefully before they respond with sarcasm… Some good-natured sarcasm is a good thing, even if it gets a little edgy, but I still sense in Bucksketball a defensiveness that leads to testiness. I hope I’m wrong, and I hope that Bucksketball is as sensitive to the Bucks players as it seems to have been about itself.